Tag: Lazarus

Biblical Stories of Being Raised from the Dead

The Easter story celebrates Jesus’ unique resurrection, contrasting it with other instances of being raised from the dead, like Lazarus and others. While Lazarus and others experienced repair or temporary returns, Jesus’ resurrection signifies a transformative experience, promising believers a future spiritual body and a restored existence in Heaven and Earth.

On Easter we celebrate Jesus being raised from the dead, but the Easter story is not the only story about being raised from the dead. The Easter story is unique, however, because Jesus isn’t just raised, He is resurrected. This is a very different thing. Perhaps in the course of your lifetime you might be clinically dead. You may even experience leaving your body. But modern medicine will bring you back. You will not come back as resurrected. You will merely be repaired, at least enough to get you by for a while.

The second most famous story is the raising of Lazarus in John 11. Jesus intentionally drags His feet on going to help His sick friend. The raising of Lazarus is going to be a powerful sign of what God can do. By the time Jesus arrives at the scene, Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. Everybody expects physical decay to have begun. Has it? Not beyond the ability of Jesus to fix it. Where was Lazarus these past four days? Technically, Lazarus dies (the first time) before the atonement for sins is complete. I would expect that he had a brief stay in the good neighborhood of Sheol (aka The Bosum of Abraham or The Limbo of the Fathers)https://afterdeathsite.com/2021/05/11/an-expectation-of-sheol/ . Would that be upsetting to be recalled? I am not sure about the quality of existence in this space. It is a sort of waiting room for Heaven and may not be that different than living here. Lazarus was no doubt honored to be such a powerful part of the ministry of Jesus. There was one definite downside:

9 When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, 11 because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

John 12:9-11 (ESV)

We are not given follow-up on this story. I would have to assume that Lazarus was later murdered. He would go through the process of dying twice, which tells me that it is not so bad on the relative scale of things. Lazarus’ resurrection is still pending.

Other people beside Jesus were given the ability to raise the dead. Elijah in 1 Kings 17:17f raises the son of a widow, and Peter in Acts 9 raises a beloved woman (Dorcas/Tabitha). The power of repair work can be given as a spiritual gift. Both are powerful signs. It is hard to say where the boy was for he was neither a Jew nor necessarily under grace. He may have come from the bad neighborhood of Sheol, and would have been overjoyed to get out. Tabitha would have been in Heaven. She had been dead for hours. Like Lazarus, I’m sure she was willing to fulfill God’s purpose in her existence. Also, like Lazarus she would die again.

Jesus raises the daughter of Jairus. This is similar to the boy raised by Elijah in the sense that the grief of parents is uniquely difficult. She is dead for less than a hour probably. It would be more like Near Death Experiences done by medical means. People who experience NDE’s of Heaven don’t want to return, but they continue to live with an excitement of getting back to Heaven.

One last non-resurrection “return”. The prophet Samuel is summoned by non-acceptable occultic means through the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28). Samuel is not pleased. Samuel says that he was “disturbed” and “brought up”. It doesn’t seem to be in physical form, so he remained dead but could communicate his displeasure.

What is different between being “repaired” and raised, Near Death Experiences, occultic summoning, and resurrection? A lot. We will receive a heavenly body for heavenly realms, but we are not complete until we receive a resurrected earthly body. This won’t happen until Judgment Day. The resurrected body exceeds our current body in every way. Paul describes it this way:

42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

1 Corinthians 15:42-44 (ESV)

https://afterdeathsite.com/2024/12/10/pondering-the-properties-of-our-resurrected-body/Jesus was raised with all this plus being the incarnate Son of God, so the properties of His physical being are beyond our knowledge and all comparison.

While we won’t have some of the unique properties of Jesus, we will be vastly different than today, able to enjoy a restored Earth and Heaven. Easter joy is a celebration of a major mile post of the plan of God for our salvation. It also is a time to ponder what comes next for those who belong to Jesus.

Jesus’ Resurrected Body

One of the promises the Bible makes to those whom God has saved is that we will one day receive a resurrected body. A resurrected body is not necessarily the same as a body that has been raised from the dead. Some of the people raised from the dead in the Bible account (Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, etc.) were merely repaired and revivified. Their bodies still would wear out. They would die again.

“Resurrected” is a nearly complete remake. There will be some retention of what makes us unique persons. Other than that, we are remade to be without sinful nature and many other genetic defects that have arisen along the way. Paul gives a description of a resurrected body:

42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

1 Corinthians 15:42-44

Breaking this down, what can we learn? First, it is imperishable. Can a body of flesh and bone be imperishable? It is not too hard to imagine that our genetics could be modified to create systems that would not wear down and cell reproduction that could go on indefinitely. The people who lived before Noah’s flood apparently had genetics that allowed them to live nearly a millennia. God actually modified them down. We could also be given systems that would make us disease free. What about injury? The resurrected body might be self-repairing.

“It is sown in dishonor”, is likely a reference to sinful nature. The genetics that give us a proclivity to sin and resist God will be gone.

“It is raised in power.” This is an exciting description that would suggest higher limitations and new abilities for our resurrected body. How much fun would it be to run faster and farther, to jump and climb, lift and maybe even new stuff like teleport or use telepathy for communication. What will it do for our intellect? As many of us experience the decline of our physical and mental self, due to aging or disease, it is exciting to think or the 2.0 version of ourself that is coming.

“It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” This always baffled me. Now I think it means this. A natural body is one limited to this time-space dimension. A spiritual body is one that can be either here or in the time-space of Heaven or Hell. Paul doesn’t explain, but other places speak of or hint at a Heavenly body (1 Corinthians 15:40, 2 Corinthians 5:1).

The only example of a resurrected body is that of Jesus after His resurrection. Jesus is described as the “first-born of the dead”. This basically means that He is the first to be resurrected with more to come. What can we say of Jesus’ resurrected body? He eats. He is recognizable when He wants to be, and not recognizable when He doesn’t. He moves differently. He doesn’t have to use the door. He still retains the marks of His crucifixion as a badge of honor. That is about it. Do any of these things reflect Him as the Son of God versus a resurrected human? Maybe. Maybe not.

My interest in Jesus’ resurrected body is primarily out of curiosity about what God has planned for me. We have only a little information, but what we do know and the possibilities that flow from that information are exciting. If you are part of a church that says the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds, I hope that you will think about these things when you say, “I believe in the resurrection of the body” or ” I look for the resurrection of dead and the life of the world to come.”

The Story of Lazarus: Resurrected or Fixed?

In John 11 we find the story of the death of Lazarus.  Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha, and all were friends of Jesus.  Lazarus fell mortally ill.  We are not told what type of illness.  In an attempt to help their brother, the sisters sent word to Jesus of Lazarus’ illness.  Jesus was in Judea, keeping his distance for the time being from the Jewish leadership.  Mary, Martha and Lazarus lived just outside of Jerusalem.

Time was of the essence, but Jesus delayed His departure for two days.  He told his disciples, “This sickness will not end in death.”  A true statement, though Lazarus would literally die and be dead for four days.  Jesus allows the death to happen to demonstrate His power over death and His compassion for all of us with respect to our eventual death.

Jesus told his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.”  They, naturally, assume Jesus was using the word sleep in the usual sense, but He was not.  Lazarus had died.  Why did Jesus and later Paul refer to death as sleep?  They want to save the word “death” to describe eternal exile from God.  The choice of sleep has lead to some confusion, though.  When we naturally sleep, we enter an altered state of brain activity.  We are not inanimate.  When we die, we may be unaware of the state and surroundings of our bodies, but we are very much aware and animated.  Our awareness will be of wherever our soul happens to be.  So where was Lazarus?

Lazarus was not having your typical near death experience.  He was dead for four days.  Still, as a pre-resurrection of Jesus person, I would expect that he was experiencing what every righteous, Old Testament person experienced–which is not Heaven but a part of Sheol.A Word You May Not Know: Sheol  As Lazarus is summoned from the grave, it would be easy to say that Jesus resurrected him; but that would not be technically correct.  As with people who have Near Death Experiences, Lazarus was temporarily fixed and revivified by Jesus.  Resurrection is something much bigger.

When Jesus comes out of the tomb after three days, He is resurrected.  His body is more than just alive again.  He has the full remake that humans have been promised by God:  no more sickness, aging, pain, death or whatever.  A new set of capabilities and less limitations can be expected as well.

The best modern medicine and even future science can hope to do for you is fix you.  That isn’t so special.  We look forward to being resurrected.  Resurrection may not even use that much, if anything, of your earthly remains.  It will be uniquely you, but cleansed of sin and the curse and perfected.

Lazarus would have to die again.  In fact, some conjecture suggests that Lazarus might have made it on a hit list.  His existence would have made him unpopular with Jesus’ enemies.  Now Lazarus is in Heaven.  Jesus has cleared the way.  Lazarus still waits for the resurrection.  It is something to which to look forward.  The Resurrection of the Body